Science Policy Around the Web – February 9, 2016

Almost two years since the city of Flint, MI switched from Detroit water to their local water supply, the citizens are finally being listened to in regards to their drinking water. Time and time again, citizens and researchers were ignored when they tried to alert local officials to their poor water quality conditions. Finally, Flint residents and researchers were able to get the message out: not only is their local water undrinkable, it is contaminated with lead.

Lead intoxication or lead poisoning does not necessarily lead to seizures, hospitalizations or medical events. However, health care professionals are still alarmed because lead levels in children reached 5 micrograms per deciliter (5 ug/dL). The percentage of children in Flint, MI under the age of 5 with lead levels that high have now since doubled (2.4 percent to 4.9 percent). Furthermore, in areas with the highest levels of lead, more than 10 percent of children have lead levels that are at least that high.

The most worrisome statistics are the long-term and lasting effects due to lead poisoning. A study published in Pediatrics examining more than 3,400 children in Rhode Island identified that children with blood lead levels between 5 to 9 micrograms per deciliter (5-9 ug/dL) fell below reading readiness for kindergarten. Additional studies examining lead levels and child development also report increase likelihood to engage in risky behaviors such as smoking or drinking at an early age.

Now that attention is centered on Flint, MI and its trouble with lead in the water, focus needs to turn to mitigating any long-term damage children and adults may have as a result of lead poisoning. Historically, lead has been used ubiquitously in manufacturing. Not only used for pipes, lead has been an additive in gasoline, in paint and has also accumulated in soil. We should take a lesson from Flint and analyze the state of lead poisoning in our own communities. As Aaron E. Carrol comments, “Until we solve the lead problem for good, we may be condemning children to a lifetime of problems.” (Aaron E. Carroll, The New York Times)

During the Ebola epidemic in 2014, several people coming back to the United States from West Africa were quarantined: meaning they could not return back to their normal lives for at least 20 days. For several of these people, they felt the quarantine was akin to imprisonment and now have filed a lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed by Yale Law School students against Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy and state health officials on behalf of ex-quarantined plaintiffs or those plaintiffs still in West Africa. The plaintiffs who were quarantined claim that they had no Ebola symptoms that warranted their isolation upon their return. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and an order preventing any future quarantines. Plantiffs say, “Being quarantined made me feel like a criminal.” “There was no scientific reason to confine me to my apartment, with no visitors and a police officer parked outside my door.”

Like other governors of New York or New Jersey who issued quarantines to health workers returning from areas in Africa endemic with Ebola, Governor Malloy adopted the same stringent policies. Not only did health care workers feel undue prejudice or discrimination as a result of traveling to West Africa, but so did Liberians living in Connecticut. It will be interesting to see what the court rules. (Dave Collins, The Washington Post)

A study described in the top biomedical journal, Science, in 2012 observed that bexarotene, an FDA-approved cancer drug, was able to clear a protein, A-beta, from the brains of mice. This reduced plaque formation and smaller forms of the protein which in essence reduced the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease which is known to accumulate proteins that form plaques in the brain that reduce brain function. Excitingly, the mice treated with bexarotene showed signs of improved learning and memory—a reversal of Alzheimer’s symptoms. However, a year after their work appeared, four reports, also in, Science, disputed some of those findings.

In tests on rats, Amgen, a pharmaceutical company, found that bexarotene didn’t drop levels of plaques or smaller forms of the protein, A-beta. The author of the original Science paper, Dr. Landreth, argued that the present study did not use a formulation of the drug that would persist at high enough levels in the brain to be useful.

“Larger trials would be more informative”, says Landreth, who stands by his group’s original findings. “When we published our Science paper, it took us five years and we did the best science we could,” Landreth says. “And I am convinced that we are right.” (Laura Sanders, Science News)